The Bozeman weekly chronicle. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1883-1889, 1887-06-15
That financial Statement Again.

l think ii il Job who says: Sin multi
tude of worls is dsrkening of counsel"
and If q fresh illustration of the truth of
this saying was needed. no better n
could be found than in the articles signed
Taxpayer" in the last two issues of the
Courier. The first charge was virtually
that of fraud against the county officials;
but the falsity of that charge and the in
correctness of his figures were 80 COM
pletely exposed in my former article,
that he does not even venture to defend
his first position, but tries to cover up
his retreat by new charges. The confu-
sion of his verbosity is such that it is
hard to bring out any definite statements
from the middle; but I shall attempt to
get at the few points that are at all clear.
l must really apologize to the intelli-
gence of your readers for noticing him
at all, but I presume many Of them have
not the financial statement at hand, and
others who are not accustomed to deal
with figures may easily have been con-
fused by the manner in which he throws
his together. 49,.
l. He charges that 1 have admitted
the main point at issue. l have done no
such thing. l have shown that Taxpay-
er had used the figures of the financial
statement 80 as to show that he was ut
terly unable to understand it. The only
other explanation possible was that he
knew his figures to be false, when lie
used them to charge county officers with
fraud.
2. He charges that the writer is an
officer or employee of the county. / will
say in reply that I have never been in
the employ of Gallatin county, and have
never drawn one dollar from its treasury
for services. ...
8. He claims an error of $20,550.63
There is no such error. 1t is absurd to
talk of "errors" when the whole question
is simply one of form and bookkeeping.
Taxpayer admits that the money is on
hand in the county treasury, hut differs
from the county commissioners in his
notion about the form of the statement.
Why then talk of "errors" in such a way
as to imply hat there is a serious wrong.
4. He claims that there is an "appar-
ent" increase of debt of $22,945. 95.
There is, If you use n system for the
statement of 1886 and another for that of
1887. But if you use the same form for
both years, you will get an increase of
but a little more than $1,000.
s.. He claims that it is impossible that
the receipts and disbursements should
balance, and that there should yet be an
increase in the debt Of $2,395.32. This
seem to be his main point, and he evil
IDENTIFY thinks he has got ne. I will give
him a little instance of how this might
occur to himself. We will suppose that
Taxpayer starts to town with a load of
hay. He sells this for $40 and proceeds
to purchase sundry articles according to
the list given him by his wife when he
left home. This takes all of the twenty
dollars, which is all the money he has,
So far his receipts and expenditures have
been equal and will be found to balance
exactly; but as he gets ready to start
for home, he bethinks himself that his
supply of wet groceries is out. He gets
his little keg out and has it duly filled at
an expense Of ten dollars, bnt he does
not disburse this mount. He only ex-
ponds it and has the bill charged. His
account now stands as follows:
Toral receipts:
Hav sold, $40.